


Catch On (something red, something blue)

by ehre_wahrheit



Category: Joker Game (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, completely self-indulgent, the modern amari/emma reunion i needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:23:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7628509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehre_wahrheit/pseuds/ehre_wahrheit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amari remembers talking, about something senseless - about something important, in this life, maybe, as Phillip Smith the American Math teacher and not as the dead Japanese spy from seventy years ago.</p><p>He remembers hearing a stupid joke his companion says, and laughing at it because Phillip Smith has a stupidly appalling sense of humor and he finds the joke funny, until his eyes catch on something bright red under the sun and he stops breathing because - no - it can't be - could it be possible -</p><p>--</p><p>First part of the Joker Game reincarnation AU i needed to get over the pain of the initial series and novels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch On (something red, something blue)

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: I didn't have the time to check over this for grammar, spelling, and formatting errors, so forgive me! I might come back to fix it in the future. For now, enjoy the awesomeness of Emma hnng

Amari remembers talking, about something senseless - about something important, in this life, maybe, as Phillip Smith the American Math teacher and not as the dead Japanese spy from seventy years ago.

He remembers hearing a stupid joke his companion says, and laughing at it because Phillip Smith has a stupidly appalling sense of humor and he finds the joke funny, until his eyes catch on something bright red under the sun and he stops breathing because - no - it can't be - could it be possible -

His head whips to the direction of the beacon, practically begging him to follow, to trust his instincts and no, you're not hallucinating this time, because he meets a pair of bright, bright blue eyes and there's a voice shrieking in the air.

"Daddy!" the voice calls. "Daddy!"

Amari doesn't question it. He drops everything he's holding and crouches in time to catch a small body that barrels right into his chest - a small body his arms have been craving to hold ever since the memories started filtering in; a body he had once given up on ever feeling against his again.

"Emma," he breathes against red hair, because she's here. She's here now. "Emma," he says again, because he still can't believe it. His heart is beating in his head, because Phillip Smith's body didn't go through the training Amari had. "I missed you, baby."

"Phil?" his colleague calls, confused, because they had known each other for longer than this Emma has been alive, and he has never heard of Phillip having gotten anyone pregnant.

"Ivan, you dumbass!" a girl comes calling, breathless and eyes bright with panic. "You do not just go running away like that!"

"But Mari, it's daddy!" Emma - Ivan, Amari thinks - says, and her - his - hand curls around his collar. "Tell him, Mari! You remember too, don't you?"

Amari blinks at her, and she stares at him before sighing and straightening up. They both ignore the confused "Phil" from behind Amari. "So... you're him? Daddy?"

Amari blinks.

"He remembers everything, you know. He started remembering a few months ago. He gets nightmares. Sometimes he'll look at our dad and beg him not to leave us alone."

And Amari wants to cry, because he once left her alone, now 9, looking beautiful and sweet and small, and he never went back. Because he got a bullet wound to the back of his head and was thrown into the Colorado River in the middle of winter. (Ironic, then, that Phillip Smith was born on January 13, to a Colorado couple. Or maybe fate?)

"Do you?" he asks her. "Remember, I mean."

She nods, smiling faintly. "Not as completely or vividly as Ivan does, but yeah, I do. I remember my death the clearest." She chuckles, but there was no amusement in it. There wasn't any emotion, really.

"Who were you, then? Before all of this."

"I was a farmboy. I didn't want to leave the fields for the war. The lieutenant shot me for insubordination."

They're all silent, before Emma decides to wiggle. Amari looks at him - her - and smiles. She doesn't smile back. "I died when I was fifteen," he says, looking sad, and scared, but not confused. Amari is impressed - the girl must have patiently helped Ivan understand everything he's been through. "When you didn't come back, I was scared. I stayed with Grandpa Yuuki. Uncle Oda said you might not come back, but I never believed him."

Amari's throat is dry, and his mouth feels sticky. But he still has to ask, for his own peace of mind. "How - How did you die, baby?" he whispers against his head, as red as it had been the first time he saw her, scared and hiding behind her mother's skirt, in a cruise; as red as he had last seen it before he died.

He hums. "I got really, really sick. Grandpa Yuuki took care of me, but it was really, really hot. And then it wasn't anymore."

Amari presses his face against his head again, feeling a pain in his chest he hasn't felt since he was reborn. "You must have been in so much pain. I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't matter. You're here now! We can be together again!"

The girl visibly winces and Amari dreads it as she says, "Ivan, no you can't. We have to go back to Russia at the end of the week, remember?"

"I don't want to!" Ivan screams, and he wraps both of his arms around Amari's neck. "I don't want to leave, not ever!"

I don't want you to, either, Amari wants to say, but he has to be the adult here. "Ivan, baby, let's make a deal, okay?" he says. "Come back to the US when you're older, and come find me. And then we'll be together, okay?"

Ivan sniffs. "You'll wait for me?"

"Forever, baby."

"You won't get a new baby without me?"

Amari winces, remembers Phillip's parents' wish for a grandchild. "I... can't promise that," he says lamely.

Ivan is silent, before he lets go of Amari's neck. "I can still be your baby?"

"You were my baby when you were nine, and you were my baby before you were reborn. Of course you can."

Ivan wiggles, and Amari sets him down. He presses a kiss against red hair again before straightening up, surprised to see the girl with her phone towards him.

"What?" she asks, defensively. "I wasn't a part of his past life. It'd make it easier if he could be with someone who was." Amari takes the phone from her, slowly. He doesn't miss the look she sends him. "You should find them too, you know," she says.

"Who?"

"Them. Yuuki and Oda and Hatano and Saku. He tells me about them - maybe not as much as he talks about you, but he remembers them. We can probably host an online meet-up of all the people who died in the 1940s."

Amari chuckles, handing back the device to its rightful owner, now with his contact details - phone number, mobile, email, Skype, Twitter handle - saved under his name.

She looks at it and raises an eyebrow. "Phillip Smith," she says. "See you in about six years, maybe less if we can find you online."

Amari nods, and waves goodbye as he watches his child walk away.

That was it, about this life. He can watch as many people walk away with just a burning ache in their wake, now. There's no horror, no terror, no thoughts of it probably being the last, because there's a next time, now. There's a sure 'see you' with every 'bye' and there's no need to check if the doors or the windows in his apartment had been tampered with.

There's no more fearing the cold, dark isolation that he had signed himself up for, thinking it was the last adventure he needed. He picks up the things he dropped, and looked back at his colleague.

His friend, in a lot of ways, the first one he made upon the realization that he isn't a spy anymore.

"My name is Amari," he tells him. "I was a Japanese spy. I was killed in Colorado in 1944. I am now known as Phillip Smith, a math teacher at the community high school. It's a pleasure to meet you."

He hesitates, but then a smile spreads over his face and he chuckles as he shakes Amari's hand. "My name is Cole Jackson, born and raised in Colorado. I teach English, and you have to tell me your story someday."

Amari feels a pressure in his chest release, and he grins. "Yeah, sure. Care for a night out on the town?"

Cole laughs, as if he gets the joke even though Amari knows that only eight other people on Earth can. Maybe eight, or even nine. But he still appreciates it as Cole agrees, and they go on their way to the farthest bar they can go to without actually leaving city limits.


End file.
